For the past few days, I haven't quite felt up to posting. But I think we all need a little holiday cheer in our lives, particularly at times when the world feels so bleak. So for the third installment of The Blank Wall Project, I went scissor happy to make....a layered paper Christmas tree!I started out by determining how long I wanted the lowest "branch" of the tree to stretch across the board. Then I cut a strip of heavy-duty, green crepe paper to that measurement, folded it in half, and then cut along the fold. Along one side of each strip, I cut slits approximately 2-3 inches long and spaced them about 3 inches apart (don't worry about spacing the slits perfectly). To create ends that appear to flip out, I rolled each cut section with a pencil. When you remove the pencil, the paper will look slightly rolled. I continued cutting the strips of crepe paper until there was enough to create a tree. To make some garland, I cut strips of aluminum foil in the same manner, cutting them about half the width of each crepe paper strip and cutting slits even closer together.
Once the paper was cut, Andrew helped me affix the strips in layers along the board. We layered each strip so that the top strip covered the upper third of the strip below it. Then we centered a long piece of yarn along the top strip, taping it in place where the star would later be placed. We stretched the yarn to create a triangle, taping the ends along the bottom. On each side, we cut the paper following the yarn line. Once the paper had been cut, we used tape to add the garland and a star cut from craft paper.